Wednesday, 27 August 2014

Many universities and colleges offer courses to improve your learning
effectiveness. In those sessions, usually spread across several weeks,
you will be taught to define your goals, to get organized, to be
disciplined in your studies, to take notes, underline the main ideas,
and review constantly what you have learned.

Why people fail to complete crucial tasksJudging by the
results, one might wonder if those courses work that well. The number of
drop-outs from colleges and universities is still substantial. Wasted
resources and wasted time. What a pity, people lament, but can the
situation be improved? If we take a look at adult vocational training,
the situation is somewhat better, but still far from ideal.

Indeed,
there is plenty of room for improvement, but this is the kind of
problem that cannot be solved by preaching. If conditions are going to
ameliorate, this will happen only as a result of personal example. With
good reason, people tend to believe more what they experience themselves
than what they are told.

Effective learning can take place at minimum costLet me tell you a story that
illustrates how effective learning can take place at minimum cost. Moses
Maimonides was born in the year 1135 C.E in Cordoba, in the south of
Spain. His father was a rabbi and possessed at home a few dozen books
about Jewish law, medicine, and Greek philosophy.

During his
infancy, Moses Maimonides, together with his older brother David,
received many hours of instruction from his father, although that cannot
be compared to the thousands of lessons that contemporary children
receive at school. What is amazing is that, with very limited resources,
Maimonides absorbed knowledge like a sponge.

His brother David
began a jewellery business and Maimonides also took some part in it, at
the same time that he devoted a share of his time to writing a General
Commentary on Jewish law. His writings were based on the books that he
had read, to which he added his own reflections.

The jewellery
business had its ups and downs, but Maimonides continued researching and
writing during his twenties and early thirties until he finished his
commentary, which today, nine hundred years later, is still considered
one of the major scholarly works on Jewish law.

What to do when you are stranded in a foreign land with no moneyThe family moved
to Egypt in search of a better life, but a catastrophe was soon to wipe
out their resources. Maimonides' brother, David, died in a shipwreck,
taking down with him all the family fortune. Stranded in Egypt with no
money, Maimonides opted for trying to make a living as a physician,
using the medical knowledge that he had acquired in Spain.

As of
1165 C.E., during his thirties and forties, Maimonides practised
medicine in Alexandria, the main port in the north of Egypt. His success
was so astounding that, although Maimonides was a Jew, Sultan Saladin
appointed him physician to the court. That entailed regular obligations
and, every morning, Maimonides went to the royal palace to give medical
consultations to the royal family and court officials.

In
addition, every afternoon, he ran his private medical consultation at
home, both for the Jewish and Islamic community. As though this was not
enough work, every evening, he tried to devote some time to read
philosophy and to continue writing.

By the time he was 50 years
old, Maimonides had completed his second major work, the "Guide for the
Perplexed," an extraordinary intellectual attempt to reconcile religion
with Aristotelian logic. The book had a major impact in later Western
thinkers and, nowadays, in the 21st century, it is still in print.

The inexpensive short cut to extraordinary knowledge This
was just the end of the second period of his writings, since later on,
he began to produce texts about medicine, including a commentary on the
aphorisms of the Greek physician Hippocrates. How did Moses Maimonides
managed to accumulate such an extensive knowledge in different areas?
Here is the explanation that I can put forward:

Enormous curiosity to learn things that he considered interesting.

Getting hold of a few good books in the areas of knowledge that he liked.

Reading those books many times, year after year, making his own notes.

Concentrating on different fields of knowledge one after the other. In
the case of Maimonides, he focused his research and writings,
sequentially, on the areas of law, for about twelve years, then on
philosophy, for about another twelve years, and finally, on medicine.

Learning from mistakes and making corrections as he went along.

You
may argue that such rules of learning were good for someone living nine
centuries ago, but that they have become obsolete in our time. Modern
schools and universities, such as those in the fields of law and
medicine, impose strict requirements on which subjects are to be covered
by students.

The rules of learning and self-development have not changedAlthough the environment and demands have changed, I
submit that the principles of accelerated learning have remained the
same. Curiosity, personal motivation, and a few good books is all it
takes to get started. For those who possess the knowledge, passing
formal exams has never been a problem. Other elements, such as working
experience, can be picked up as you go along.

Does this method really work?The ultimate proof
of the learning method was provided by Maimonides himself. He got
married when he was 50 years old and, soon after, he had a son, whom he
named Abraham. The kid read at home the same books that Maimonides had
read and, already as an infant, he began to assist his father during his
medical consultations.

When Maimonides died in 1204, he was 69
years old. By that time, his son Abraham, who had just turned 19, had
already acquired such a reputation as physician that he was also
appointed to a position in the royal court. Apparently, the system of
learning had worked its wonders once again, but the story does not stop
here.

During the following decades, Maimonides' grandson and the
son thereof also learned the same profession at a young age and, later
on, practised medicine very successfully. During the 13th and 14th
centuries, they belonged to the most famous physicians of Egypt.For more information about rational living and personal development, I refer you to my book The 10 Principles of Rational Living[Text: http://johnvespasian.blogspot.com] [Image by RonAlmog under Creative Commons Attribution License. See the license terms under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JOHN VESPASIAN is the author of eight books about rational living, including "When Everything Fails, Try This" (2009), "Rationality Is the Way to Happiness" (2009), "The Philosophy of Builders: How to Build a Great Future with the Pieces from Your Past" (2010), "The 10 Principles of Rational Living" (2012), "Rational Living, Rational Working: How to Make Winning Moves When Things Are Falling Apart" (2013), "Consistency: The Key to Permanent Stress Relief" (2014), "On Becoming Unbreakable: How Normal People Become Extraordinarily Self-Confident" (2015), and "Thriving in difficult times: Twelve lessons from Ancient Greece to improve your life today" (2016).